Close

The camera freezes a moment in time and in Close, Ian Skinner and Karen Coombes’ collaborative exhibition, that moment of compressed time allows us to respond to an intimate view of the natural world. Close also showcases the process of two photographers uniting their separate creative practices to create a wider view for the audience of what they captured through their lenses.

Close emerged out of Ian and Karen’s shared engagement with nature and creating observational photography. Their images set out to capture the essential nature and materiality of their subjects and I particularly found their use of macro composition and abstraction an engaging visual hook into this world. Their decision to shoot in black and white allows us to focus on the patterns and textures; removing colour also created a more unified look to their works. Ian reflected ‘once you remove colour the photographs become very much about texture, composition and lighting in its purest form’. The absence of colour also really influenced their subject selection – both were drawn to structure and composition and light.